The First Of The Cavalry Arrive To Rescue Kwasi Kwarteng
Most commentators think Kwasi Kwarteng is in trouble, but I feel that he has the strength of the mathematics around him.
This press release from BP was released on Wednesday and is entitled UK Offshore Wind: Laying The Groundwork Today.
These two paragraphs outline the work BP are doing to develop wind power in the Irish Sea.
Plans are critical, but it’s putting them into action that counts. As part of our strategy to get wind turbines turning, specialist vessels and crew are out on the Irish Sea undertaking massive seabed survey work. It’s an early but important step on the road to building some of the UK’s biggest offshore wind farms.
Once up and running, our Morgan and Mona projects could deliver enough capacity to power 3.4 million homes with clean electricity and help the UK to meet its climate goals. Their near-shore location – around 30 kilometres off the coast of northwest England and north Wales – will allow for lower-cost, more reliable transmission infrastructure, making them a core part of our plans for more secure and lower carbon energy for the UK.
This EnBW-BP infographic describes the project.
Note.
- BP’s partner is EnBW, who are a publicly-traded German energy company.
- There is a project web site.
- The press release and the graphic are showing the same numbers.
- Morgan and Mona will use proven fixed-foundation wind turbine technology.
- The combined site is around 800 km² or a square of under thirty kilometers, so it is only quite small in the context of the Irish Sea.
- First operation is given on the web site as 2028.
As BP and enBW have massive financial, engineering and project management resources, I believe they will look to bring the 2028 operation date as far forward as is possible.
If you do the cash flow for a project like this, especially when you have the financial and engineering resources of BP and enBW, the mathematics show that if you can accelerate the installation of the turbines, you will start to have a cashflow earlier and this will finance the debt needed to install the wind farms.
Consider.
- I believe the 2028 date, is one that BP know they can keep, to satisfy the Stock Market and investors.
- BP have large cash flows from their profitable oil and gas businesses.
- BP have probably reserved places in the manufacturing queues for wind turbines, foundations and all the electrical gubbins to connect the turbines to shore.
- BP want to prove to themselves and sceptics, that they can handle the building of wind farms.
- The are already lots of wind farms along the North Wales Coast, so I suspect that the problems of building wind farms in the Irish Sea are well known.
I will not speculate on the date that Mona and Morgan are complete, but I very much doubt it will be in 2028.
These are some more thoughts from the BP press release.
What’s Happening And Why?
The purpose of these deep geotechnical investigations, carried out by specialist Geo-data company Fugro, up to 100 metres below the seabed is to determine soil characteristics for foundation design (find out how it’s done in the short film, above). Collecting this data will enable bp and EnBW to build efficient offshore wind farms with the least environmental impact. It is crucial for securing government consents for the projects and defining the structure and location of the individual turbines.
Even thirty kilometres off shore, there needs to be detailed planning permission.
Our Other Offshore Wind Projects
We aim to become a leader in offshore wind and, over the past three years, we’ve built up a pipeline of projects with partners in both the US and UK that have the potential to power more than 5 million homes.
And earlier this year, we agreed to form a partnership with Marubeni to explore an offshore wind development in Japan.
It’s all part of our aim to have 20GW of developed renewable generating capacity by 2025 and 50GW by 2030 – that’s broadly enough to power the needs of 36 million people.
Note.
- Their ambitions are high, but then so much of the experience of offshore oil and gas can be applied to offshore wind.
- BP has the cashflow from oil and gas to reinvent itself.
- Assuming a strike price of £40/MWh and an average capacity factor of 30 %, that is an income of around five billion pounds for starters.
- If they added energy storage to the wind farms, there’s even more money to be generated.
As Equinor, Ørsted and SSE have shown, you have to be big in this business and BP aim to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest.
Conclusion
Wind farms like Mona and Morgan, and there are several under development, will create the electricity and revenue, that will come to the rescue of the Chancellor.
As I update this after a busy day, it looks like Jeremy Hunt has inherited KK’s excellent groundwork and mathematics.
Ørsted Signs Two ‘Industry First’ Monopile Contracts For Hornsea 3 Foundations
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from Ørsted.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Ørsted, the world’s most sustainable energy company, has signed two ‘industry first’ contracts for the fabrication of XXL monopile foundations for the Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm.
I have a few thoughts about the press release.
XXL Monopile Foundations
These four paragraphs describe Hornsea 3’s XXL monopile foundations.
Subject to Ørsted taking a Final Investment Decision on Hornsea 3, the contracts have been finalised with Haizea Wind Group, through its subsidiary Haizea Bilbao, and SeAH Wind Limited, a UK-based subsidiary of SeAH Steel Holdings (SeAH).
Ørsted will be the first major customer at SeAH Wind’s new monopile facility in Teesside, and the agreement with Haizea marks the company’s first XXL monopile contract with Ørsted.
The deal with SeAH represents the single largest offshore wind foundations contract secured by any UK company. Haizea’s agreement is the largest single contract ever secured by Haizea Wind Group.
Each of the huge foundation structures for Hornsea 3 will weigh between 1,300 and 2,400 tonnes and measure in at between 83 and 111 metres in length. Monopile production is expected to start in 2024.
Note
- These are huge steel structures.
- But then the water depth appears to be between 36 and 73 metres.
- It looks like the orders are shared between Spanish and Korean companies
This article on offshoreWIND.biz, is entitled Beyond XXL – Slim Monopiles For Deep-Water Wind Farms.
These are some points from the article.
- XXL-Monopiles have been successfully used for water depths of up to 40 metres. Now wind farm developers need monopiles “beyond XXL”.
- The extension of the range is needed, mainly to enable the use of larger turbines, deeper water, and harsher environmental situations.
- These monopiles will allow turbines of up to 15 megawatts with rotor diameters of up to 230 metres.
- This monopile design automatically induces the idea of design and fabrication optimisation to ensure that monopiles continue to lead the ranking of most economical foundation systems.
In the 1970s, I was involved with a Cambridge University spin-out company called Balaena Structures, who were using similar much larger structures to support oil and gas production platforms.
I was just doing calculations, but I do wonder if these XXL monopile foundations, owe things in their design to work done by structural engineers, like those I met at Cambridge fifty years ago.
Ørsted Completes 50% Stake Sale In Hornsea 2 To French Team
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Renewables Now.
This sale was outlined in this press release from Ørsted in March, where this is the first paragraph.
Ørsted has signed an agreement to divest a 50 % ownership stake in its 1.3 GW Hornsea 2 Offshore Wind Farm in the UK to a consortium comprising AXA IM Alts, acting on behalf of clients, and Crédit Agricole Assurances.
Insurance companies must like wind power, as Aviva backed Hornsea 1 wind farm. I wrote about this in World’s Largest Wind Farm Attracts Huge Backing From Insurance Giant.
It looks like the French feel the same way as Aviva about Ørsted’s Hornsea wind farms.
There is no safer mattress in which to stash your cash.
Energy Dome To Partner With Ørsted For Energy Storage
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on CleanTechnica.
This paragraph from the long article, gives details of the partnership.
I got a press release from Energy Dome this past week telling me that its technology has attracted interest from Ørsted, the Danish company that is a global leader in wind turbine technology. The two companies have signed a memorandum of understand that will allow them to explore the feasibility of deploying of a 20 MW/200 MWh Energy Dome facility at one or more Ørsted sites.
Is this the first deal between a major wind farm developer and a third-party non-lithium battery developer?
The article on CleanTechnica is very much a must-read and it goes into detail about the technology behind Energy Dome’s unique CO2 battery.
These are my thoughts.
Energy Dome Has A UK Office
Is this significant?
- The UK has a large need for energy storage than any other country in Europe, as we have lots of renewable energy generation, that could benefit.
- Most Italians speak good English.
- The UK government is prepared to develop innovative payment schemes for renewable energy.
- Their is a long history of Italians in the United Kingdom.
- Italians are distributed all over the UK.
- Some of the best Italian chefs are resident in the UK.
- The UK market is not biased against foreign customers.
I wouldn’t be surprised, if Energy Dome targeted the UK market.
Ørsted
Some facts about Ørsted.
- Ørsted are the largest energy company in Denmark.
- As of January 2022, the company is the world’s largest developer of offshore wind power by amount of built offshore wind farms.
- Ørsted own or have shares in fifteen offshore wind farms in the UK, which have a total capacity of 8731 MW.
- Ørsted have no interests in onshore wind in the UK.
- Ørsted divested itself of its last onshore wind farm in 2014.
The fact that Ørsted has partnered with Energy Dome is highly significant, as in my experience large powerful companies don’t partner with smaller start-ups without a lot of technical due diligence.
Use Of A 20 MW/200 MWh Energy Dome
I suspect that Ørsted will deploy their first 20 MW/200 MWh Energy Dome facility with onshore wind.
When you compare the 20 MW/200 MWh Energy Dome with the 1.5 GW/30 GWh Coire Glas pumped storage hydroelectric power station, it is only a fairly small storage system, in both terms of output and storage.
As an Electrical and Control Engineer, I suspect that will mainly be used with smaller offshore wind farms to smooth the output, rather than as serious stand-by power for a large GW-sized wind farm.
In the UK, Ørsted has three smaller wind farms, that could be suitable.
- Barrow – 90 MW
- Burbo Bank – 90 MW
- Gunfleet Sands 3 – 12W
Note.
- All are a few miles offshore.
- Gunfleet Sands 3 was built to test two l6 MW turbines.
- All the three wind farms are over twelve years old.
I think it is unlikely, that any of these three wind farms will be fitted with the Energy Dome.
I do believe though, that a 20 MW/200 MWh Energy Dome facility could work well with the Barrow wind farm, as it is a simple farm not connected to any others.
Stromar, Broadshore And Bellrock
The ScotWind wind farms, that I described in ScotWind Offshore Wind Leasing Delivers Major Boost To Scotland’s Net Zero Aspirations, are starting to be more than numbers in documents.
This map shows the various ScotWind leases.
Note, that the numbers are Scotwind’s lease number in their documents.
- 3 is now Bellrock and 1,200 MW
- 8 is now Broadshore and 900 MW
- 10 is now Stromar and 1,000 MW
Falck Renewables, who have now been renamed Renantis, and BlueFloat Energy are involved in all three projects, with Ørsted also involved in Stromar.
This article on Renewable Energy Magazine is entitled Companies Partner on Floating Offshore Wind In Scotland, where this is said.
Together the three areas could accommodate a total of approximately 3.0 GW of offshore wind capacity, with the projects scheduled to be operational by the end of the decade, subject to securing consent, commercial arrangements and grid connections.
Dates for ScotWind seem to be emerging and 2030 seems to cover several.
Hornsea 2, The World’s Largest Windfarm, Enters Full Operation
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from Ørsted.
These are the first three paragraphs, which outline the project.
The 1.3GW project comprises 165 wind turbines, located 89km off the Yorkshire Coast, which will help power over 1.4 million UK homes with low-cost, clean and secure renewable energy. It is situated alongside its sister project Hornsea 1, which together can power 2.5 million homes and make a significant contribution to the UK Government’s ambition of having 50 GW offshore wind in operation by 2030.
The Hornsea Zone, an area of the North Sea covering more than 2,000 sq km, is also set to include Hornsea 3. The 2.8GW project is planned to follow Hornsea 2 having been awarded a contract for difference from the UK government earlier this year.
Hornsea 2 has played a key role in the ongoing development of a larger and sustainably competitive UK supply chain to support the next phase of the UK’s offshore wind success story. In the past five years alone, Ørsted has placed major contracts with nearly 200 UK suppliers with £4.5 billion invested to date and a further £8.6 billion expected to be invested over the next decade.
Note.
- Hornsea1 was the previous largest offshore wind farm.
- The first three Hornsea wind farms, could have a total output of over 5 GW.
- There is a possible Hornsea 4, that may be in the pipeline!
Will Hornsea 3 take the crown from Hornsea 2, when it is commissioned in 2027?
SSE Goes Global To Reap The Wind
The title of this article on This Is Money is Renewable Energy Giant SSE Launches Plan To Become Britain’s First Global Windfarm Business As it Invests Up To £15bn Over Next Decade.
The title is a good summary of their plans to build wind farms in Continental Europe, Denmark, Japan and the US, in addition to the UK and Ireland.
I can also see the company developing more integrated energy clusters using the following technologies.
- Wind farms that generate hydrogen rather than electricity using integrated electrolysers and wind turbines, developed by companies like ITM Power and Ørsted.
- Reusing of worked out gasfields and redundant gas pipelines.
- Zero-carbon CCGT power stations running on Hydrogen.
- Lots of Energy storage.
I talked about this type of integration in Batteries Could Save £195m Annually By Providing Reserve Finds National Grid ESO Trial.
In the related post, I talked about the Keadby cluster of gas-fired power stations, which are in large part owned by SSE.
Conclusion
I think that SSE could be going the way of Equinor and Ørsted and becoming a global energy company.
It is also interesting the BP and Shell are investing in renewable energy to match the two Scandinavian companies.
Big Oil seems to be transforming itself into Big Wind.
All these companies seem to lack grid-scale energy storage, although hydrogen can be generated and stored in worked-out gas fields.
So I would expect that some of the up-and-coming energy storage companies like Gravitricity, Highview Power and RheEnergise could soon have connections with some of these Big Wind companies.
Batteries Could Save £195m Annually By Providing Reserve Finds National Grid ESO Trial
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Current News.
The title gives the findings of the Arenko-led trial.
What Is The National Grid Reserve Service?
It’s all about providing capacity for the National Grid Reserve Service, which is described in this Wikipedia entry. This is the introductory paragraph.
To balance the supply and demand of electricity on short timescales, the UK National Grid has contracts in place with generators and large energy users to provide temporary extra power, or reduction in demand. These reserve services are needed if a power station fails for example, or if forecast demand differs from actual demand. National Grid has several classes of reserve services, which in descending order of response time are: Balancing Mechanism (BM) Start-Up, Short-Term Operating Reserve, Demand Management and Fast Reserve.
The Wikipedia entry is very comprehensive.
A Collateral Benefit
This is a paragraph from the article.
Additionally, unlike CCGT plants, batteries do not need to be producing power in order to provide Reserve as they can charge when there is abundant renewable energy on the grid, and then wait to react when needed. As CCGT’s need to be producing power to provide this service, it can led to renewables switched off in favour of the more carbon intensive fossil fuel generation, to ensure Reserve is available if needed.
The article concludes that Reserve from Storage could help National Grid ESO’s reach their target of net-zero operation by 2025.
Could We Replace CCGT Plants With Batteries?
CCGT or combined cycle gas-turbine power plants are efficient ways to turn natural gas into electricity.
- Typical sizes are around 800 MW.
- They are reasonably quick and easy to build.
- As their fuel comes by a pipeline, they don’t need to be connected to the rail network, unlike biomass and coal power plants.
Because they burn methane, they still emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide, although levels much less than an equivalent coal-fired power station.
In Energy In North-East Lincolnshire, I described the three Keadby power stations.
- Keadby – In operation – 734 MW
- Keadby 2 – Under construction – 840 MW
- Keadby 3 – In planning – 910 MW
In total, these three power stations will have a capacity of 2484 MW.
By comparison, Hinckley Point C will have a capacity of 3200 MW.
Add Keadby 4 and the four CCGTs would provide more electricity, than Hinckley Point C.
I think it would be very difficult to replace a cluster of CCGT gas-fired power stations or a big nuclear power plant with the sort of batteries being deployed today. 2.5 to 3 GW is just so much electricity!
I do believe though, that instead of building a 3200 MW nuclear power plant, you could build a cluster of four 800 MW CCGTs.
But What About The Carbon Dioxide?
Using the Keadby cluster of CCGTs as an example.
- Keadby 2 and Keadby 3 are being built to be upgraded with carbon-capture technology.
- The HumberZero gas network will take the carbon dioxide away for storage in worked-out gas fields in the North Sea.
- Some carbon dioxide will be fed to salad vegetables and soft fruits in greenhouses, to promote growth.
- Keadby 2 and Keadby 3 are being built to be able to run on hydrogen.
- The HumberZero network will also be able to deliver hydrogen to fuel the power stations.
I’m certain we’ll see some of the next generation of wind turbines delivering their energy from hundreds of miles offshore, in the form of hydrogen by means of a pipe.
The technology is being developed by ITM Power and Ørsted, with the backing of the UK government.
- Redundant gas pipelines can be used, to bring the hydrogen to the shore
- The engineering of piping hydrogen to the shore is well-understood.
- Redundant gas pipelines can be used if they already exist.
- Gas networks can be designed, so that depleted gas fields can be used to store the gas offshore, in times when it is not needed.
But above all gas pipelines cost less than DC electricity links, normally used to connect turbines to the shore.
I can see very complicated, but extremely efficient networks of wind turbines, redundant gas fields and efficient CCGT power stations connected together by gas pipelines, which distribute natural gas, hydrogen and carbon dioxide as appropriate.
Could Offshore Hydrogen Storage And CCGTs Provide The Reserve Power
Consider.
- Using a CCGT power station to provide Reserve Power is well understood.
- Suppose there is a large worked out gasfield, near to the power station, which has been repurposed to be used for hydrogen storage.
- The hydrogen storage is filled using hydrogen created by offshore wind turbines, that have built in electrolysers, like those being developed by ITM Power and Ørsted.
- One of more CCGTs could run as needed using hydrogen from the storage as fuel.
- A CCGT power station running on hydrogen is a zero-carbon power station.
Effectively, there would be a giant battery, that stored offshore wind energy as hydrogen.
I can see why the UK government is helping to fund this development by ITM Power and Ørsted.
Could We See Cradle-To-Grave Design Of Gas Fields?
I suspect that when a gas field is found and the infrastructured is designed it is all about what is best in the short term.
Suppose a gas field is found reasonably close to the shore or in an area like the Humber, Mersey or Tees Estuaries, where a lot of carbon dioxide is produced by industries like steel, glass and chemicals!
Should these assessments be done before any decisions are made about how to bring the gas ashore?
- After being worked out could the gas field be used to store carbon dioxide?
- After being worked out could the gas field be used to store natural gas or hydrogen?
- Is the area round the gas field suitable for building a wind farm?
Only then could a long-term plan be devised for the gas-field and the infrastructure can be designed accordingly.
I suspect that the right design could save a lot of money, as infrastructure was converted for the next phase of its life.
Conclusion
It does appear that a lot of money can be saved.
But my rambling through the calculations shows the following.
Wind Turbines Generating Hydrogen Give Advantages
These are some of the advantages.
- Hydrogen can be transported at less cost.
- Hydrogen is easily stored if you have have a handy worked-out gas field.
- The technology is well-known.
Hydrogen can then be converted back to electricity in a CCGT power station
The CCGT Power Station Operates In A Net-Zero Carbon Manner
There are two ways, the CCGT station can be run.
- On natural gas, with the carbon-dioxide captured for use or storage.
- On hydrogen.
No carbon-dioxide is released to the atmosphere in either mode.
The Hydrogen Storage And The CCGT Power Station Or Stations Is Just A Giant Battery
This may be true, but it’s all proven technology, that can be used as the Power Reserve.
Power Networks Will Get More Complicated
This will be inevitable, but giant batteries from various technologies will make it more reliable.
Denmark To Build ‘First Energy Island’ In North Sea
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first three paragraphs
A project to build a giant island providing enough energy for three million households has been given the green light by Denmark’s politicians.
The world’s first energy island will be as big as 18 football pitches (120,000sq m), but there are hopes to make it three times that size.
It will serve as a hub for 200 giant offshore wind turbines.
It seems to follow the bigger-is-better offshore principle, I talked about in Crown Estate’s Auction Of Seabed For Wind Farms Attracts Sky-High Bids.
The BBC article says this about the energy generation of the island and its turbines.
The new island would supply an initial 3 gigawatts, rising to 10 over time.
For comparison the coal-fired Fiddlers Ferry power station on the banks of the Mersey near Widnes was a 2 gigawatt station and the nuclear Hinkley Point C will hopefully generate 3.2 GW.
These are my thoughts.
The Location Of The Island
According to the BBC, the Danes are being secretive about the location of the island, but the BBC does say this about the location of island.
While there is some secrecy over where the new island will be built, it is known that it will be 80km into the North Sea. Danish TV said that a Danish Energy Agency study last year had marked two areas west of the Jutland coast and that both had a relatively shallow sea depth of 26-27m.
According to Wikipedia, Denmark has a sizeable offshore gas industry and I did wonder, if the island would be built near to a large worked out field, so that the field could be used for one of the following.
- Store hydrogen produced on the island from surplus electricity.
- Store carbon dioxide produced on the mainland.
But the gas fields are further than 80 km. from the shore being closer to where Danish, German, Dutch and British waters meet.
Hydrogen And The Island
In ITM Power and Ørsted: Wind Turbine Electrolyser Integration, I talked about a joint project between, electrolyser company; ITM Power of the UK and turbine manufacturer and developer; Ørsted of Denmark.
The post was based on this press release from ITM Power.
These were points from the press release.
- Costs can be saved as hydrogen pipes are more affordable than underwater power cables.
- It also stated that wind turbines produce DC electricity and that is ideal for driving electrolysers.
So will the island be connected to the mainline by a hydrogen gas line?
- Cost will play a big part.
- I don’t like the concept of electrical cables on the sea floor,
- Gas pipes have been laid everywhere in the North Sea.
- A hydrogen connection might better support different types of future turbines.
- If there is a worked-out gas-field nearby, the hydrogen can be stored offshore until it is needed.
I think it is a distinct possibility.
Hydrogen could be generated in one of two ways.
- Wind turbines based on the ITM Power/Ørsted design could generate the hydrogen directly and a gas network could deliver it to the island.
- Conventional turbines could generate electricity and an electrical network could deliver it to the island, where a large electrolyser would convert water into hydrogen.
Both methods would be better suited to a hydrogen connection to the mainland.
Connection To Other Islands
The Dutch are already talking about a North Sea Wind Power Hub on their section of the Dogger Bank.
So could we see a network of islands in the Southern North Sea?
- Some like the Danish island would support a network of wind turbines.
- Some would store energy as hydrogen in worked-out gas fields.
- Some would store captured carbon dioxide in worked out gas fields.
- Some would supply hydrogen to onshore hydrogen and carbon dioxide networks like HumberZero.
- Islands could be linked by electrical cables or gas pipelines.
- Gas pipelines would allow both hydrogen or carbon dioxide to be stored or moved
The North Sea could become the largest power station in the continent of Europe, or even the world.
EU Backs Orsted Team On Green Hydrogen Initiative
The title of this post, is the same as that as that of this article on renews.biz.
This is the sub-title of the article.
European Commission Funding For The Oyster Project That Also Includes Siemens Gamesa, Element Energy and ITM Power
There is a press release on ITM Power’s web site.
This paragraph sums up the project.
ITM Power, Ørsted, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, and Element Energy have been awarded EUR 5 million in funding from The Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH2-JU) under the European Commission to demonstrate and investigate a combined wind turbine and electrolyser system designed for operation in marine environments.
This is said about the design of the electrolyser.
The electrolyser system will be designed to be compact, to allow it to be integrated with a single offshore wind turbine, and to follow the turbine’s production profile. Furthermore, the electrolyser system will integrate desalination and water treatment processes, making it possible to use seawater as a feedstock for the electrolysis process.
It looks like it will be a standalone turbine, that instead of producing electricity it will produce hydrogen.
This paragraph gives the objective of the project.
The OYSTER project partners share a vision of hydrogen being produced from offshore wind at a cost that is competitive with natural gas (with a realistic carbon tax), thus unlocking bulk markets for green hydrogen making a meaningful impact on CO2 emissions, and facilitating the transition to a fully renewable energy system in Europe.
The project will run from 2021 to 2024.
When I first heard about creating hydrogen offshore with a combined wind-turbine and electrolyser, I thought this could be the way to go.
It’s certainly a way to produce large quantities of green hydrogen.
But I also feel, the process has a serious rival in Shell’s Blue Hydrogen Process, which uses a catalyst to split methane into hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
Shell will need uses for the carbon dioxide or worked-out gas fields to store it.
The Anonymous Widower 